setting out a timetable for disclosure, exchange of evidence and final hearing which should take place 2016.

The Canadian government filed a defence on 30 July 2016 denying breach of any international obligation under NAFTA or otherwise. Eli Lilly served its memorial (lengthy written submissions) on 29 July 2014.

What the Appeal was about
The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co ("Lilly") has developed a drug called pemetrexed which it markets under the brand name Alimta for the treatment of various types of cancer. Used on its own, pemetrexed has unpleasant side effects that can sometimes be fatal but these can be avoided when it is administered as a compound called pemetrexed disodium in combination with vitamin B12.

The use of pemetrexed disodium in the manufacture of a medicament for use in combination with vitamin B12 (and, optionally, folic acid) for the treatment of cancer is monopolized in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and a number of other European countries by European patent number No 1 313 508. There are also corresponding patents for the same invention in many other countries around the world.

Until the Civil Procedure Rules ("CPR") came into force in 1999 solicitors specializing in intellectual property law heralded litigation with an ultimatum called a letter before action. Written in haughty if not insulting terms and accompanied by a humiliating form of undertakings, they were intended to shock the recipient into submission. They rarely achieved the desired result. As often as not they were simply ignored. Occasionally, they were answered by a defiant response. As a result, a lot of actions were launched that could easily have been settled without recourse to litigation.

"The objective of the Practice Direction and the Pre-Action Protocols is to enable the parties to identify the issues in dispute and, wherever possible, to resolve them through negotiation or some other fo…

Ms LaBau blogs about cakes and desserts in her SugarHero! blog. One of her confections is "Snow Globe Cupcakes with Gelatin Bubbles". The BBC reports that Ms LaBau does not complain that copying her recipe infringed her copyright as "it is almost impossible to claim copyright over a list of ingredients" but she does object to the copying of a video explaining how to make the cupcakes,…